Busy day again up the lottie and at home.

Norfolk Lasses Eggs Total to Date: 342 Day:149

KoKKo 114 Personal best egg weight 86grms 29.11.2005
Adelaide 115 Personal best egg weight 80grms 26.02.2006
Ginger 113 Personal best egg weight 80grms 27.03.2006

London Ladies Bantam Eggs Total to date: 20 Day:18

Dilly 7 Personal best egg weight 36grm 27.03.2006
Freckles 8 Personal best egg weight 37grms 28.03.2006
Pumpkin 5 Personal best egg weight 31 grms 27.03.06

Another four hours hard labour up the allotment in high winds but dry weather and even a some sunshine. Pat says that I have a red face from being in the sun. I have the typical fair skin English Rose complexion, so I will have to start using sun block to stop me getting burnt.

Firstly six eggs from the girls today, but for some reason the biggies have been chasing the little ones around and the little ones keep diving into the hedge. No plucked feathers or loss of blood or anything,just a lot of squawking. I went up the allotment and left them to it - I fret otherwise. Fast forward to late this afternoon. I cleaned out the Eglus, and decided to put the banties in the extended run meant for the big girls. I put in a log, a perch, a hide, food, water, a cage of greens and a ripe tomato, and put them in and shut the door. Came in for an ice cream and a rest, and you should have heard the commotion they kicked up. All three of them squawking at the tops of their voices - just because they were locked in. The run is almost half the size of the pen, and is meant for five or six big hens. After half an hour Pat said I ought to let them out, because of the racket - and not wanting to upset the neighbours. So I did. Another bit of argy bargy again, big ones chasing little ones, little ones diving into the hedge. Pat said that studying them it seems to be the food and hedge problem.

So after spending all that time sorting out the two runs, etc. it was back to square one.

I took out all the food containers, as they had eaten their quota for the day anyway. The cabbages and broccoli I left as they were almost finished. I removed the hedge completely and hidey hole which had a bantam egg in it, and left them to it.

Peace. Norfolk Lasses scratching the ground where the hedge had been, London Ladies scratching where the Norfolk Lasses had been. Peace. I threw in their evening's ration of corn mix, sprinkled all over and they ate side by side. And they are still out there peacefully scratching in their littel groups.

So tomorrow I am going to put their breakfasts in when I get up, not put in is ready overnight. So that they will all be pre-occupied with eating and drinking first thing. Then I will remove the food and let them out. Goodness knows why there was the kerfuffle today. Still, I probably would never had known if I was out at work.

So up the allotment - and again plans had to be changed.

I got out my big rotorvator 5.5hp and it started first time - yippee - so off I went to do go over the manured bed which I had double dug over winter. It looks a treat now, and I also did around the fruit bushes and raspberries but still need to take out some grass by fork near the bushes themselves.

Having done that I put it away, as didn't want to over do things and got out my little 4 stroke one - but the pull cord was stuck - I have only just got them all serviced too, so I was not best pleased, so I did not get to rotorvate down the end flower bed to move the remaining chrysanths.

Still undeterred, I did a bit of weeding, then shifted 12 barrow loads of pig muck to fill up to the top my four bean trenches, which have had kitchen waste added to them over the winter.

I was so weary by then, that I picked a sack full of broccolli plants and leaves for the chooks and headed off home - to do the cleaning out of the chickens as Pat was still not back from golf.

The girls had laid 3 big eggs - which I was counting on after freezing all the eggs last night bar one. So we had our weekly dose of eggs and home made wedges, and some rare breed slices of bacon - bliss.

Will upload the photos later on in the morning and the blog has been playing up.